Why do yoga with goats and invite them to your wedding? Because they make everything better.

Claire Fleming, 9, center, cradles a baby goat at Hux Family Farm in Durham on June 29, 2017. Fleming attended day camp at the farm which included playtime and yoga with the goats as well as helping care for the goats. Juli Leonardjleonard@newsobserver.com

Claire Fleming, 9, center, cradles a baby goat at Hux Family Farm in Durham on June 29, 2017. Fleming attended day camp at the farm which included playtime and yoga with the goats as well as helping care for the goats. Juli Leonardjleonard@newsobserver.com

Goats are having a moment right now. Everywhere you look, people are posting photos of themselves doing yoga while tiny goats stand on their backs, meditating with goats, reading to goats – even posing with goats at weddings.

Why all this sudden goat love?

Amanda Avery, co-owner of Hux Family Farm in Durham, said she thinks goats are so popular now because people are looking for more lighthearted interactions in their daily life, and goats provide that.

“I think that people that interact with them are seeing that this isn’t just a fad – they’re awesome,” Avery said. “I actually didn’t realize how popular they were until we started doing things with them.”

Goats just brighten your day, Avery said. “They make me smile every time I go out to spend time with them.”

‘I do’ want a goat at my wedding

At the Chapel Hill Carriage House Farm and Garden, which regularly hosts weddings, owner Brenda Leeper said that at most weddings, guests would wander over to see the goats, so they decided to just ask couples getting married if they wanted to include goats in their festivities. The answer: yes, please.

Michael and Liz Barlock at their wedding at the Chapel Hill Carriage House with Abraham the alpaca and Rosie the goat.

Shane Snider

“I have a bride who’s getting married here and she wanted to do goat yoga on the day of her wedding with her bridesmaids,” she said, “so that’s going to happen.”

Leeper said baby goat yoga has been very popular whenever they’ve hosted it.

“There were 40 people each, and then there were 500 people on the waitlist,” Leeper said. “And there were people that were really into yoga. I mean, there were people that weren’t quite as much into yoga, but they were just so excited to see the goats.”

Kathryn Spann, co-owner of Prodigal Farm in Rougemont, said Prodigal, which has a herd of about 400 goats used for dairy and meat, will not be offering goat yoga.

“Personally, in my understanding of yoga, it seems a little inconsistent with the practice to include goats as a part of it,” she said. “I think goats love people in general, assuming they’ve been treated well, and I think it’s great for people to spend time with animals – and if people like doing goat yoga, I think that’s marvelous.”

Prodigal does host events for people to meet and spend time with goats, though. They have baby goat festival days, open farm days and a volunteer program in the spring.

A nice distraction

Kate Murray, a yoga instructor who teaches at Hux once or twice a month, said she thinks people come to yoga with goats primarily to see the goats.

“I think, in many ways, it gets people to relax even more than yoga in a studio,” Murray said. “They’re smiling, they’re enjoying the goats, they’re not taking anything too seriously.”

Ella Crosby, a participant in yoga with goats at the Hux, said she had no interest in yoga, only in goats.

“If they didn’t interact with you, it wouldn’t be fun,” she said. “But since they were jumping on you, it was.”

Jennifer Rehm and Amber Poinsett, who work at a fitness center in Pittsboro and attended a yoga with goats session at Hux, said they liked seeing the differences between regular yoga, which they’re used to, and goat yoga, which they had never done before. They said the goats were a distraction, but a cute one.

“I think sometimes in yoga ... you try to center your mind and you try to push out all distractions that are going on in your regular life. Here none of those were happening because the goats were the distraction. It was a good thing,” Rehm said.

Where to hang out with goats

Here are some places in the Triangle where you can do goat yoga and meditation, hold parties and other activities.

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